Marine training gets high-tech help

CAMP PENDLETON - On a complex battlefield where the enemy blends
in with the civilian population, Marines are often forced to make
split-second decisions.
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Is the bulge beneath the Iraqi man's clothing hiding a bomb? Is
the apparent cell phone being carried by another actually a
remote-control device ready to set off a roadside bomb?

Inside a former tomato plant two miles down a dirt road near
this base's Camp San Mateo, a $2.5 million "Infantry Immersion
Trainer" is helping Marines prepare for that kind of scenario, the
kind troops face routinely on the dusty streets of Iraq.

"We are in the throes of an irregular war and we owe it to our
Marines to prepare them to make the right legal, moral and ethical
decisions," said Col. Clarke Lethin, chief of staff of Camp
Pendleton's I Marine Expeditionary Force.

"What they face in Iraq is one of the toughest things to
replicate in training," he said.

Lethin and Marine Corps officials walked about 75 defense
industry representatives through the simulated village Tuesday and
told the group that they were ready to buy their best ideas to
enhance the training experience.

The industry reps also were in town for a two-day weapons and
equipment exhibition that starts at the base this morning.

Tuesday's focus, however, was all about training Marines in how
to tell friend from foe, when to shoot and when to hold back.

One of the Marines showing how the troops react in the various
scenarios was Lance Cpl. Jason Trehan, a 24-year-old Ohio native
who returned from his fourth Iraq assignment in November.

"It's pretty realistic and a lot like what we do face," Trehan
said. "It could be bigger, though. Bigger is always better," he
said, in reference to the somewhat cramped series of rooms and low
ceilings.

Trehan said a higher ceiling that would accommodate rooftops
would more accurately depict a typical Iraqi village.

One of the defense industry contractors, former Marine and Iraq
veteran Eddie Wright, 32, of Seattle, said the facility reminded
him of the streets of Fallujah - streets where he lost both his
hands to a rocket-propelled grenade attack in April 2004.

"This gives us an urban environment much like the fight we are
in now," said Wright, who was awarded the Bronze Star with a combat
decoration for valor.

He now works as the military training coordinator at Strategic
Operations, a 20-acre virtual training facility for the military
and law enforcement in San Diego.

A lance corporal assigned to Camp Pendleton's 1st Reconnaissance
Battalion when he was injured, Wright was eventually promoted to
sergeant before being medically retired from the service.

He said the simulated village, its actors and projection screens
get "Marines thinking the way they're supposed to."

Opened in December, the center joins simulated villages at
Miramar Marine Corps Air Station and the Air Ground Combat Center
at Twentynine Palms as places that train local troops before they
head off to Iraq.